Hidden Power of the Void... Maw
While browsing thru my collection of older singles, I came across this small gem and thought I’d bring it before the great Council of EDH players. Void Maw. Currently running about $0.35 USD and is only played in 126 decks on EDHREC. Undervalued and Underplayed. I think we need to shed some light on this horror from beyond and see what it can really do.
The Stats
Void Maw starts out as a 4/5 for 4BB with Trample. Trample is always a useful form of evasion but the 4/5 for 6 cmc leaves a bit to be desired. Let’s read on down the card. “If another creature would be put into a graveyard from play, exile it instead.” Graveyard hosing, definitely relevant in most if not all EDH games. Stops “dies” triggers and halts infinite sac combos. Sadly it only exiles creatures that hit the yard from play, so anything previously in the graveyard, milled or discarded still has relevance. “Put a card removed from the game with Void Maw into its owner’s graveyard: Void Maw gets +2/+2 until end of turn.” This horror essentially has a free pump effect for each creature that would die and is exiled by it instead. Situational but still good.
How to Utilize Void Maw
First and fore most Void Maw makes for a great graveyard hoser and beat stick Two-for-One. Also a great bargaining chip for certain scenarios that may arise. Let me explain:
Scenario A: Your opponent controls a Rest in Peace or other graveyard hating permanent that exiles cards when they hit the graveyard. You play Void Maw. You now have a replacement effect that rivals your opponents replacement effect. Whenever a creature dies, its controller gets to decide which replacement effect they would like to use. Bargain a bit. Have the Rest in Peace exile a creature that would die forever, or maybe have your Void Maw exile it temporarily until the Rest in Peace can be dealt with. What’s the worst that could happen? They kill the Void Maw and now the cards that were/would be exiled are still exiled. Void Maw can be a saving grace, whisking your valuable creatures into a pocket-exile, temporarily saving them for later. Your opponents also get to choose. And if you don’t like their choice of having Void Maw exile the creature, you can use Void Maw to pitch the creature into exile with Rest in Peace for its pump ability. Even tho Rest in Peace replaces the Void Maw graveyard effect, the ability still resolves. The cost of removing a creature exiled with Maw and putting it into the graveyard has been paid. Now this may piss off the player a bit, but it gives you some control over the situation.
Scenario B: Your opponent controls a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. When a creature you control would die, that creature’s controller gets to elect to have your Void Maw exile the creature instead of Kalitas, essentially nullifying his exile/token production ability. You can also safely deposit the exiled creatures into their owner’s graveyards (for FREE) for later recursion. Now let us cover Overseer of the Damned, Butcher of Malakir and Blood Artist. They all have triggers for whenever other creatures die. Void Maw laughs at these creatures. You won’t need to sacrifice creatures to Butcher, lose life to Artist or have to worry about an endless army of zombies from Overseer.
Scenario C: Your opponent is running a Melira Pod style deck where they tutor up their win cons, combine them on the board and move to combo off. I’m going to use Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Kitchen Finks and Viscera Seer for this scenario. If you’re not familiar with the Pod style decks, I’d highly recommend looking them up. I won’t be covering them in this post tho for space’s sake. In short, with the correct creatures in play, you can scry thru your whole deck, deal “infinite” amounts of damage to players and/or gain “infinite” amounts of life. With Void Maw out, you instantly halt the combo. Persist creatures die and come back to play if they died without a -1/-1 counter on it. Maw will exile the creatures as soon as they would die, stopping the Persist ability as they are placed into exile as a replacement effect. No Finks, no endless lifegain. This also applies to creatures with Undying. No Mikaeus Unhallowed/ Triskelion combo when Triskelion gets exiled.
Scenario D: Your opponent plays a board wipe while your Void Maw is out. As Void Maw dies with the other creatures in play, it will see them dying and exile them instead. Void Maw however cannot exile itself and goes to the graveyard, waiting to be recurred back to the battlefield or hand at a later time. Creatures exiled this way however cannot be brought back from exile as the Maw has left the battlefield and is no longer in control of them. It’s a good way to ensure that no one wipes the board unless they want to permanently lose everything in play. Don’t forget that any creatures Void Maw kills can feed into its ability later down the road. Be cautious, but don’t be afraid to swing into your opponents with Maw. You can always remove cards from its exile to pump it up to survive combat or get thru extra damage.
I hope this card insight was helpful and brought to light a severely undervalued creature in my opinion. I’m going to try to make my posts more frequent. Long story short, I’ve finally found peace and I’m in a good/better spot now. So fear not my meta-slaves. Auntie Sidisi is back, and she’s got some home brews cooking away! Stay tuned my sweeties.
